RPO and Talent Management Blog by Ochre House | Ochre Talk

Do you need a local presence to recruit in emerging markets?

According to the latest PwC survey of business leaders around the globe, one of their biggest headaches is how to source and retain the talent they will need to take advantage of the opportunities offered by emerging markets.

And, if the experience of our own clients are anything to go by, nowhere is this worry more acute than in the developing markets of the EMEA region and, in particular, in eastern Europe, the Middle East and northern and central Africa.

The key problem that most organisations face is the fact that their talent strategies and recruitment models for this area tend to be centred in the UK, Ireland or the Netherlands – hundreds if not thousands of miles away from the target markets. Often the business will have no legal entity in the country in question. Its hiring specialists will have little or no understanding of local conditions, language or culture. Talent pools may be small, technology tools limited or non-existent. The challenge is somewhat daunting to say the least.

Some organisations try to tackle this by establishing a local HR presence, others by engaging with a local recruitment consultancy. But both are fraught with difficulties. The first entails extra expense and overhead at a time when costs are still very much under close and questioning scrutiny. The second means handing over control of your brand and messaging to what is potentially an untried, unknown third party. 

In my view the solution lies in a combination of remote and local. Centralised hiring teams can deliver remotely, but only if they are steeped in knowledge of the target locality. And that means building a hiring team with a broad range of language capability and real understanding of conditions on the ground, perhaps developed by at least one visit or face to face meeting with local agents and clear channels of communication that are always open and effectively used. Real commitment is the key to success, a genuine partnership between the centralised resource and the front line ‘in country’.

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